


Temperance

by sunshinestealer



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 20:33:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14504943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinestealer/pseuds/sunshinestealer
Summary: John pays Mary May Fairgrave a visit.





	Temperance

It had been a long day and the bills were mounting up.

Mary May could no longer bear to tear open the bank envelopes and look at the figures printed in heavy red ink. Let the bailiffs come and  _try_ to take things away, when Hope County has turned into a war-zone.

She had to remind herself that this wasn't her own personal failing. Maybe she had gotten into the cult's bad books by being so openly critical of them and trying to get her brother back from their clutches, violently batting away any kind of olive branch the cult offered her in her grief after her father passed. She knew to keep her wits about her, to laugh at this horrible situation when the alternative was breaking down in despair.

She cleaned the glasses behind the bar more out of habit now. It was a rebellious act, certainly, but it allowed her to feel some kind of normalcy in her life, pretending that the Spread Eagle was still operational and not an empty function room with a pool table in the corner she occasionally needed to dust off. 

While she was gone, some of the cultists had come in through the saloon doors and taken down a lot of the neon signs and posters, claiming them to be "invitations to sin", or whatever nonsense. Mary had shrugged it off, but then found smashed bottles and casks of alcohol removed from the basement. She did an inventory after one dull morning, finding that quite a lot of the prime local brews had been stolen, not simply poured out or smashed in a rage for abstinence. So much for the cult being purer than thou men and women who had been cleansed of their sins.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

Mary May's nose crinkled at the familiar silhouette behind those doors. 

John Seed.

He had been a regular sighting and the bane of her life since she'd decided to come back to Fall's End. He circled around her, like a hunter who was both perplexed by his prey and looking for any weaknesses with a sharp eye. 

Best not to give into him.

Mary May glowered when John strode through the room, taking up a barstool that put them into direct eye contact with one another. He was wearing that stupid jacket that came down to the backs of his knees, with the embroidery of little white planes and clouds, like some little boy and not one of the most fearsome prosecutors in the tri-county area. Or so she'd heard.

"Can I get you anything?" She asked, with an obvious hint of boredom in her voice.

"Why are you still doing this?" John asked, examining his nails. His blue eyes flashed up to her, and he smiled, showing teeth.

 _(Like a predator_ , a primal part of Mary May's mind reminded her.)

"Running the bar?"

"No... Living in sin." He said nonchalantly. "Such a shame you had to go to the clinic after we tried to help you to recognise it, spell it right out on your skin."

If she had a shorter temper, Mary May would have thrown the glass on the floor and thrown John out right there and then. But as it was, the skin infection she had gotten from those freaks forcibly tattooing her with an unsterilised gun and contaminated tattoo ink, still burned hot under the skin graft she had had taken from her thigh. 

She refused to answer back to John. 

"How are you doing in general? The Project is still willing to let you in with open arms," he said, that religious fervour creeping into his voice in the final sentence. He had learned a thing or two from Joseph since the Seed family had reunited - and he even bent his head skyward, as if it were God he was looking up at and not just a dingy lightbulb cased in a smashed fitting.

Mary May would have laughed, but still didn't wish to react. Her invitation had been extended time and time again, with John himself taking some kind of... well, almost  _creepy_ interest in her. The people of Fall's End would sneak out every once in a while, laughing over the few crates of beer that she still had that John needed to either get laid or get that stick out of his ass. Mary May retched internally at the idea of anybody being intimate with this freak.

"I know financing this place must be difficult," he said, silkily, looking up at her again. She'd made sure to stow the foreclosure notices and the envelopes stamped with 'IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED' behind the bar, where they couldn't be seen.

"This what you wanted?" Mary May asked. "Run the bar outta business and then swoop in to purchase it for the cult?"

"Seizure of property is a natural consequence if you cannot pay your bills, Miss Fairgrave." John replied. "Not much difference if your bank does it, or if we buy this place and cleanse it of the lust and hedonism it has been party to for all these years."

She had to laugh - snorting, almost. "Lust  _and_ hedonism?"

John looked at her, sombre, as if trying to get her to accept what she had just said out loud. She realised that to him, this bar's very existence was a grave sin - every neon breast flashing up on the wall, every curvy pin-up poster on the wall, the rumour (well, half-truth) that sometimes sex workers would come by this place... Then there was the alcohol, which robbed a man of his rational mind. John was a hypocrites, so keen to dominate and stay in control of whatever situation he found himself in - but Mary May had heard that he had battled with his own addictions in the past. 

"For people, all we need to do for the Cleansing is to simply use holy water." He said, fiddling with one of the beer mats. "But... fire would probably be a better choice for this place. I am offering you another choice, Miss Fairgrave."

"You want me to choose between almost bein' drowned or being burned alive?"

"Whichever you choose," he said, thoughtful, getting up from the stool, "perhaps you should remember Luke 3:16. _" baptise you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire."_

She scoffed. "Joseph?"

"Continue down the path of sin," he said, turning away and leaving. "See where it leads. Nowhere." Then, a pause as he looked over his shoulder. "I'll come back next week."

"Save yourself the trip," Mary May replied. "The answer'll continue to be the same."

"Oh, I'll get you to see the power of 'Yes', Miss Fairgrave. One way or another."


End file.
